If this was Chip Kelly’s last game at Oregon … if he has that overpowering itch to coach at the highest level of the sport … if he’s truly bound for Philadelphia, Cleveland or Buffalo … if he isn’t gunning for the raise to end all raises … or even if he’s getting out of Dodge ahead of the NCAA posse …

That’s a lot of ifs following Oregon’s 35-17 trouncing of Kansas State in the Fiesta Bowl. But if any of that is true, well, there are a couple of ways to look at it.

One—the more favorable to Kelly—is that he’s one of those competitive souls to whom the vast majority of us simply cannot relate. Someone who, like Nick Saban eight years ago, has an inner burning, an inner calling, to find out just how great he is. Someone like Michael Jordan, even, who must self-impose the occasional challenge in order to find the next level of accomplishment.

If that’s who Chip Kelly is, heck, we respect his determination to leave one of the cushiest jobs in college football for utter who-knows-what in the NFL.

Good luck to him, and let’s see what he can do.

But there’s another way to look at the possibility Kelly will leave Eugene for a far less friendly outpost.

“What the hell is he thinking?” pretty well sums it up.

In four seasons, Oregon is a crazy 46-7 under Kelly and an even crazier 33-3 in Pac-12 play. Based on Thursday's night result, the Ducks will clearly bring back a team capable of winning a national championship in 2013.

Kelly has the coolest program in college football under his thumb. He has a benefactor in Phil Knight whose influence makes Kelly—who’s plenty cool in his own right—even cooler.

Kelly has double-digit wins on lock.

And he gives it all up if he goes to the NFL.

Ask Saban. Ask Steve Spurrier. (Just don’t ask Pete Carroll.) No one will care who Kelly is in Philly, Cleveland or Buffalo. Sure, they’ll care at the very beginning. But it won’t even last past his first regular-season loss.

And there will be losses; there will be four or eight or 12 losses in that first season alone. There will be more losses, and more angst among fans, and more criticism in the media than Kelly has ever dealt with or even conceived of as a head coach.

Does he really want to sign up for that?

Is he really ready for that?

It’s easy—so easy—for us to say, but Kelly will never have it as good in the NFL as he has it at Oregon. Just ask Ken Whisenhunt, who coached a team to the Super Bowl four years ago and has since been fired. Just ask Lovie Smith and Andy Reid, same and same.

Just ask Tom Coughlin, who has won two Super Bowl and still battles a sea of discontented doubters.

Go on, Chip. Go to the NFL. Feed your competitiveness, if that’s what this is. As long as you realize you’ll never have it this good again, hey, that’s cool with us.